Join us March 4-7 to meet Rabbi Deborah Megdal, who will be here virtually for the weekend.

Rabbi Megdal will join us on Zoom for the following events open to our whole community. The Zoom links were sent by email to our listserv. If you would like the Zoom links, please email Erin Dreyfuss.

Friday, March 5
12:30-1:15pm Torah Study

Rabbi Megdal will teach us about this week's Torah portion.

Friday, March 5
4:30-5:30pm Kabbalat Shabbat

Rabbi Megdal will lead the service and share a D'var Torah, followed by a Q&A between Rabbi Kalender and Rabbi Megdal. Our Youth service breakout rooms for Preschool-1st Graders and 2nd-4th Graders will meet with opportunities for our youngest members to welcome Shabbat with their peers. If your child wants to attend a Youth service and you want to remain in the main service, please be sure to sign on with multiple devices.

Saturday, March 6
7:00-7:30pm Havdalah and Teaching

Rabbi Megdal will lead Havdalah and present a short adult study session focused on something about which she is passionate.

Sunday, March 7
10:00-10:45am Text Study

Rabbi Megdal will teach us about one of her favorite Jewish texts.

The Olam Tikvah Search Committee has been working hard over the past several months as we seek to welcome a new assistant rabbi to our community. We hope you will be able to attend the weekend's events listed above to meet Rabbi Megdal. Your feedback is important as we plan for the future of our community. After each candidate visits, please share your feedback or questions with the Search Committee at rabbisearch@olamtikvah.org.

About Rabbi Megdal

Rabbi Deborah Megdal will be ordained by The Jewish Theological Seminary in spring 2021, earning her master’s degree in Talmud and Rabbinics. She is the recipient of the Joseph Zubow Memorial Prize in Codes and the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) Fellowship in Prophetic Halakhah.

Now in her third year as a core member of the clergy team at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in Manhattan, she serves in a fellowship specializing in pastoral care and education, bringing new programming and tools for the community to center the spiritual practice of care. Whether leading from the bimah or at a hospital bedside, pastoral moments are when she is touched by the Divine. Using a pastoral approach of “Care-Being” — a term she coined to emphasize loving presence over care-giving — her chaplaincy in hospice and her pulpit empower her to confront spiritual challenges with empathy and grace.

She shares her teachings at https://www.deborahmegdal.com/.

A graduate of Yale Law School and The University of Chicago, she clerked for a federal judge and worked in litigation at a Manhattan law firm. She was Managing Editor of The Yale Journal of Law and Feminism and worked on an amicus brief to the Ninth Circuit in the case that legalized same-sex marriage in California. She also worked in civil rights impact litigation at Lambda Legal; researched gender in the military; and in family law, helped low-income clients struggling with issues of domestic violence and child custody.

Rabbi Megdal lives with her partner, Karen, and she loves dogs, Israeli cooking, travel, folk music, and astronomy.